A Fateful Catalyst

When you think about it, everyone can think back and find those handful of moments in their life, that had they not happened, they wouldn’t be the person they are today. One might wonder, if that’s a good or a bad thing. One might wonder, what life might have looked like if those turning point moments had turned out differently. She too would think back, often, to this one moment over 10-12 days, that completely changed everything, a catalyst for a whole new life.

It was the day she was to meet her new professional development coach, from the university. They assigned a coach even before you got to the university to start school. The call was scheduled for the evening so she had some time to kill. Her mother wasn’t doing so well. She had not been able to get out of bed all day. It was one of her off days. It was not out of the ordinary so neither of them put too much stock into it. While her mother lay down in her room for a nap, she decided to while the day away watching some TV. Occasionally, her mother would call out to her to sit together. Some of the times, she did it without thinking too much but some of the times, she was reluctant as she was missing “an exciting episode” of some TV show. At one point, her mother asked her to ring up her father and ask him to come home from work early as she wasn’t feeling too well. She did. But while they waited, they talked.

They talked about random things – family, friends, memories, etc. Today, she can’t even remember specifics of what they talked about but she remembers that it was all quite pleasant. Why this stuck with her, even after so many years, was because just a few days back, the two of them had been in a major argument. She had rebelled against her parents, for the second time within a year, and had decided to go off on a trip with some of her friends, against her parents’ wishes. It came to become one of her biggest regrets to date.

Soon, it was time for her video call. Her mother spoke many words of encouragement to help even out her nerves. She took the call. It was all quite pleasant. Turns out, she was getting nervous for no reason. It was late in the evening and once the call ended, she rushed to her mother to give her all the details. She chatted and chatted and her mother listened patiently. They talked some more. When her father returned from work, her mother had turned for the worse. He called a doctor for a house call. The doctor came, gave her an injection but couldn’t find anything that was a cause for alarm. By then, it was quite late. The family had their dinner, her father trying to feed her mother something but with little success. By mid-night, it was time to go to the hospital, to emergency care. Her mother actually asked for it. This was different, must have been very serious. She recalls every bit of it as it was yesterday.

The hospital wasn’t far. The ambulance arrived pretty quickly. The paramedics came upstairs with a stretcher to carry her mother down. She went with them, down the elevator. She cannot remember what was going through her own mind throughout this. She had seen this happen, often enough, since her childhood. So in that regard, she was used to these motions. But, she remembers that she got angry at the paramedics because they took no notice that her mother’s head banged against the elevator railings a couple of times when they were transporting her. She remembers riding with them in the ambulance with her father tailing behind in their car.

When they arrived at the ER, the nurses put her in a bed and started IV fluids. Her father and she had to wait outside as family wasn’t allowed in the ER. Her father immediately went off to settle paperwork and invoices while the ER nurses got to finding her mother’s medical records and get in touch with her regular doctor. It was past midnight and so they were unable to reach her doctor to ask what treatment should be started immediately. She wasn’t just a normal patient. With not having digital medical records, all they could do was get her mother’s complicated medical history from her father. All this while, she just stood outside the ER door, peeking through the glass window, watching her mother laying in bed.

By now, being dehydrated quite a bit, her mother was hysterical, not wanting to stay lying in bed and trying to get out. She was watching this from the windows. The ER nurses were no where to be seen. She was fighting the urge to just walk in through the doors and be by her mother’s bed, stroking her head. She knew her mother liked that. Just as she had always claimed that her mother had the “magic touch”, earlier that day, her mother had told her that she did too! She found a couple of nurses in the corner laughing and giggling about something they had seen on social media. She yelled at them for not paying attention to her mother. She told them that if they couldn’t do their job, she would not stay out of the ER. Her father stepped in to calm her down but it didn’t change the fact that her mother was left on IV fluids while waiting to get the proper care that she needed all because her medical records were locked in a room and her doctor could not be reached.

They waited together. It was hours of agony but neither of them had even a wink of sleep in their eyes. All they could do was helplessly watch his wife, her mother, just lay in bed. It took almost five hours to get in touch with her doctor. Once the doctor arrived at the ER, she immediately realized the dire situation and gave orders to transfer the patient to ICU. When her mother was finally moved to the ICU, her father suggested that she go home and grab a few winks while he stayed at the hospital. She didn’t want to but went anyway. She couldn’t exactly sleep. It was the usual hustle and bustle of the morning with maids and phone calls to check in on everything. She had just managed to take a bath and eat something when her father called, asking her to come back to the hospital. It was mid morning.

When she got to the hospital, her father’s colleagues / close family friends were already there. She remembers one of them, handed her a visitor pass to go upstairs and said “all the best”! It was all very confusing. She was used to her mother being in the ICU. It had happened enough number of times since she was a child. In fact, it had happened so often, that she had made a rule in her head. She would never visit her mother in the ICU. She would only see her mother once she was out of the ICU and settled in her own private room for recovery. This time was no different in her head. She didn’t want to visit her mother in the ICU. She didn’t understand why all family friends were there to see her mother either. She went upstairs, nonetheless. As soon as she got out of the elevator, more family friends greeted her, still confusing her. She went in to her mother’s room. Her father was standing by the window. Her mother was on the bed, with all sorts of tubes coming out of her mouth. She saw her mother’s face. It was a light shade of purple. She learned soon that her mother was now on life support.

As she entered the room, her father looked at her and came up to her. He said a few simple words – “Doctors have given up all hope”. She remembers hearing these words and nothing else. All she remembers is voices in her head. What does that even mean that doctors have no hope left? Her mother always came out of these things. No matter how serious it got, she always got out of the ICU.

Funnily enough, whenever this happened before, she recalled that it happened around her birthday. Her mother would fight with doctors so she could get out of the hospital and celebrate her birthday at home, together. This time too, that was what was supposed to happen. What’s more, this year was a milestone birthday. She was going to turn 25! She was supposed to stay in the recovery room and make it back home in time. In fact, this time, even before her birthday, her parents were supposed to go with her to drop her off to America, to start her new MBA journey. They had plans to visit Chicago, show her around her place of birth and walk down memory lane together. Everything was already planned. The trip was just 3 weeks away! How can the doctors say that there is no hope? That cannot be. After what felt like micro seconds, her father took her hand and walked out of the room. He decided to take the stairs to go downstairs. They were on the 21st floor. She just went through the motion, not fully conscious about what was happening. She remembers mid way down the flight of stairs, he quietly told her that the nurses were taking her mother off her life support.

She was told to go home and bring back a saree to drape her mother in. She did. She was numb. But she went through the motions. She did not know what else there was to do. She came home, opened her mother’s cupboard and tried to decide what saree to take back. It was going to be the last saree she would wear. How do you decide what that saree should be? Someone who had a love for sarees like no one else, someone who’s one weakness was buying new sarees, someone who had two cupboards loaded with priceless masterpieces, would now be wearing one last saree. How does one choose that last one? It was then that she spotted an old off white saree that belonged to her grandmother. She had never met her grandmother but knew how close her mother was to her grandmother through the countless stories her mother recounted. There could not be a better choice. She picked it up and rushed back to the hospital.

By the time she got there, the place was packed with her father’s colleagues, all there to pay their respects and offer their condolences. She smiled and passed through the crowd, not even paying attention to what people were saying. She was still quite numb even though a barrage of feelings were bubbling inside her. She didn’t get to say goodbye. She didn’t get to hold her mother’s hand, one last time. She couldn’t be there by her bedside as she breathed her last. She recalled her mother telling her about when her grandmother had passed away. She was at the hospital but right at the crucial moment, not knowing, she had just stepped outside as her mother breathed her last. Now the same thing happened with her, only she could have been there but her father chose to take her away. She was mad at her father for taking that moment, that choice away from her. Now, for the rest of her lifetime, she will carry that regret with her.

She gave the saree to the nurses who took it inside while they all waited outside. After a few minutes, while her father tended to the visitors and hospital staff’s requests, one of the nurses came out and asked her if they would be taking “the body” home or directly to the crematorium. She was stunned. It was the first time, someone referred to her mother as a “body”. She doesn’t remember her reply. Soon, they were all off to the crematorium. The ceremony would have taken a few hours. It went by in a blur. She performed the last rites along with her father. Once done, all she wanted to do was sit beside the pyre and watch her mother turn into ashes. At least this time, she would be next to her mother. But once again, this choice was taken away from her. The crematorium had requested her father to leave until the ashes were ready to collect. Many of her father’s colleagues had gathered at the crematorium to pay their respects while they performed the last rites. It was so crowded that the crematorium was finding it difficult to carry on the rest of their business. They requested her father to leave hoping that the crowd would disperse. Hence, she was forced to leave.

At home, there was not one moment of peace and quiet. It was open doors. People arrived one after another, to offer their condolences. She was expected to cater to them by bringing them glasses of water or cups of tea. It was the traditional Indian thing to do. The ladies of the house are always expected to be the perfect host. The lady of this house was gone. That mantle now fell on her shoulder. Having never done this, she adapted where she could. Some of the wives of the close family friends lent a hand when they were around. But she doesn’t really recall those few hours. By late evening, the ashes were picked up and immersed in the nearby river, as is Hindu custom. By then, news had reached her grandfather. He was distraught and her father made arrangements to fly her grandfather out to be with them. He arrived late that night. That airport meet was not the happy meetings you are usually used to seeing. There were a lot of tears but not happy ones like you see in the movies. It was a very quiet car ride back home.

The next few days blew by quick, their front door being a revolving door of visitors coming in or going out. Visitors included friends, colleagues and even more family from her mother’s side who flew out to be with them for a few days. She played the dutiful host when needed and stayed inside her room when not. In private, she was busy thinking about what lunch should be served to the family or what groceries need to be purchased, etc. She did not have the time to sit down and let it all sink in. Some of her family thought it was unhealthy but there was nothing anyone could do. Soon, it was time to prepare for the funeral rites that are performed on the 10 day after someone passes. This was almost a whole day ritual. Preparations needed attention and as expected, all focus shifted to make sure that went without a hitch. The day arrived and passed. It all went as smoothly as it was possible. And then, it was time for visiting family to leave. Soon after, the barrage of visitors also stopped.

Now, finally, with just the two of them left in that apartment, it was time to let it all in.